


Sunday Night Family Dinner

by night_is_where_the_romance_is



Category: Now You See Me (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Fluff, Sadness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-02
Updated: 2016-08-02
Packaged: 2018-07-28 21:24:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7657273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/night_is_where_the_romance_is/pseuds/night_is_where_the_romance_is
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Ah, Sunday Night Family Dinner. Just like old times, minus my asshole brother and the general aura of hatred in the McKinney household.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sunday Night Family Dinner

      “Ah, Sunday Night Family Dinner. Just like old times, minus my asshole brother and the general aura of hatred in the McKinney household.” Merritt smirked over the rim of his wineglass, as Lula watched Danny’s eyes widen slightly and his smile tighten in response. Sunday Night Family Dinners: Dylan’s response to Danny’s accusation that if they were to indeed ‘work as a single organism’, shouldn’t they spend more time together outside of the magic tricks?

      “This is already getting off to a great start,” Jack mumbled into his mashed potatoes, Danny topping off his wine. At least this time he’d waited for everyone to serve themselves before drinking to drown out the rest of them.

      Lula sighed into her green beans, watching with a wary look that matched Li’s expression. Normally Grandma and Dylan joined them, but the two of them had taken off to scout in Belgium for something they hadn’t cared to share about yet. Probably got out while they could before the storm known as ‘Danny and Merritt’s Argument of the Day’ passed over the dinner table. “I love how civil we are, brings back the childhood memories.”

      “For all of us,” Jack said, wincing. Lula saw his expression and squeezed his hand underneath the table, trying for a comforting smile. “Can we just have a normal, non-threatening conversation for once?”

      “Where’ve you been the past, oh, two and a half years?” Danny replied, cutting a slice off of his pork chop and dunking it into the pool of gravy that had collected on his plate.

      “I’ve been here. Trying to ignore the bickering,” he said, spearing a green bean and using both it and his fork to gesture to Danny.

      “That’s what you wanna hear,” Li got in, having to raise his voice over the protestations already arising from Merritt. Lula flicked her eyebrows up to Merritt as they exchanged one of their silent conversations. Jack had told them once that it was frightening how well they got along, near twins and best friends. If they ever tried for world dominance, he’d said, Jack was terrified for how easily the governments could fall to the illusionist and mentalist. Merritt cocked his head towards her, their eyes shooting back and forth unvoiced sentences.

_‘Merritt, don’t push on this too much, everyone’s had it really rough.’_

_‘Lula, they’re never going to change if we don’t talk about it.’_

_‘Talking helps, I get it, but not everyone can open up as easily as you and I.’_

_'Yeah, yeah. I’ll ease up or whatever.’_

      “Merritt, you weren’t the only one with a crappy childhood, so could you quiet down please?” Danny downed the last of his wine and refilled his glass, ignoring the questioning stares that prodded him from those seated, plates sitting untouched as the dark subject hung heavy in the air. 

      “Care to expand?” Li poked the question out from his seat at the head of the table. Danny and Merritt were seated together, the former looking sullen at the unpleasant topic.

      “Not particularly.”

      “None of us had a great time as kids, so we’re all in the same boat,” Lula tried to reason when Jack interrupted.

      “Yeah, the boat that’s _sinking_. Did it ever occur to the rest of you that sometimes it helps to, I don’t know, _talk_ about it?”

      “I’m not talking about anything,” Danny said immediately, shoving a bite of pork into his mouth as if saying _‘and that’s that’_.

      “I’ll talk, if it’s ok with the rest of you,” Merritt piped up, sounding unusually thoughtful. No matter how much he could lack tact, he _did_ want to help everyone to open up about their own experiences. It was easier, much much easier, when it was to someone who’d gone through something similar. Merritt was trying to push someone to talk, in his own way. “They say that opening up is the fastest way to closure, or at least Wikipedia does.” Merritt paused before taking a deep breath and speaking. Lula felt her heart swell with an almost sisterly pride towards Merritt, watching her best friend talk, really _talk_ , about what had happened, not just skim over the early bits that had hit him the hardest. “Mom and Dad weren’t very happy when my brother and I revealed our, say, _gifts_ , to the rest of the family. Something about telling my Aunt Rachel that Uncle Ed was cheating on her and telling my mom that my dad had run the family cat over in the driveway and replaced it without telling anyone, that was probably it. The kids liked us enough though, except for my brother’s what they called ‘creepy’ ways.” He stopped again to take a bite of mashed potatoes, then continued. “Chase was always swindling them in poker and Texas-Hold-Em, telling them that their girlfriends and boyfriends were cheating and hypnotizing everyone to get wrong answers so he scored higher on the test, fixing bets and fights. No one was too fond of him, can you imagine? Then I went solo, he stole my money, and you all know the rest.” He smiled tightly and tipped his hat forward slightly, covering the eyes that were beginning to shine.

      “Fun times in the McKinney household, huh?” Danny said, sounding as though he was in agreement with the hypnotist for once. “Well, my parents didn’t like me all too well either. They kicked me out when I was seven. My grandfather took me in and taught me all the tricks of the trade. Turned out, he was a magician too. But he ripped off quite a few important people, and they put three bullets in his brain when I was eighteen. Hit the streets, and that was that, I guess.” Danny closed his eyes tightly, his hand clenched into a fist on the table, fork and food forgotten. “Mom and Dad died when I was fifteen. They were in a car crash.” He sniffed, trying to prevent the tears welling in the inner corners of his eyes from coursing down his cheeks. “They were in the ICU of a hospital for two days. Told the doctors and nurses that they didn’t have a son to call. I found out when I was twenty.”

      “Oh my God,” Lula whispered, tears sliding down her face.

      “I ran away when I was twelve,” Jack blurted out, holding Lula’s hand tight underneath the table. He’d said that talking about was hard, when everyone else is actually listening. “My parents, um, they weren’t the best either. They hated me for getting in trouble for stealing other kids’ toys on the playground and the test answer keys.” Jack winced again. He’d told Lula before that sometimes he could still feel a phantom hand slapping his face, remember pain lancing across his skin. God, if she had five minutes in an alley with Jack’s parents, with _any_ of the parents and brothers they all had had, did have, she’d show them exactly what happened to the people that hurt who she loved. “The night before I ran, my dad was mad at me for screwing up some big meeting he’d had with his boss. Told me that all my mom and him had wanted was themselves and their careers, and that I was a mistake. He threw dishes at me and told me that they should’ve gotten rid of me when they’d had the chance. So I did it for them, I guess.” Lula’s hand tightened around his under the table, as Li patted his shoulder hesitantly. “I still have the scar on my arm from a broken gravy tureen that hit the wall a little too close.”

      “My mom killed my dad,” Lula said, trying to take the sympathetic gazes away from Jack. He loved the spotlight, they all did, but not like this. No one ever loved this. “Knifed him in the neck one night when I was eight. He was an alcoholic, barely held down a job. Couldn’t take care of himself, let alone a kid. My mom went to jail and I went to an orphanage, some foster homes. Ran and went to the streets when I was eleven. She, uh, she got cancer. Didn’t want to try anything to keep her alive. She said that it wasn’t worth it, that the money it would cost would leave me with too much debt. She didn’t let anyone call me when she was down to her last few hours.” Lula tried to stifle the sob that was building in her throat. Her mom had always been her biggest supporter, even when she couldn’t open her eyes she had held Lula’s hand in the hospital. “A doctor called me right after she passed. I was on my way to see her when -“ she cut off, slamming her eyes shut to bar the tears that were threatening to breach the inner corners of her eyes. “I was eighteen when she died.”

      Li coughed and wiped his eyes with his napkin, as Lula looked at the heads that had all dropped down as if they were saying Grace. “My mother died when I was born. My father blamed me, he told me that she was the one that wanted a child and that I was the reason she was gone. My grandmother took me in when my father told me to leave his house. My father, he um, he’d told me that my mother would have hated me if she was alive.”

      They all had fallen silent, listening only to the tears slowly soaking into the tablecloth from everyone’s eyes and the air that was forcefully shoved through clenched teeth. Jack had pulled that same expressionless, emotionless mask over his face that he used during tense high-stress situations, times when he couldn’t handle emotions being splayed out on his features for everyone to see. Lula felt a fist clench around her heart, as unyielding as Jack’s mask. She loosened her death-grip, as he squeezed her hand comfortingly.

      “I’m sorry guys,” Merritt said, tears dripping slowly off of his chin, leaving little damp splotches on the tablecloth and soaking into the pile of mashed potatoes on his plate. “I knew that you had it bad, that we all did, but, never like this. Never - it _never_ hit me how bad you all had it.”

      “Li, I didn’t even realize that your mom - that your dad - I’m so sorry man,” Jack croaked out, reaching a tentative hand out to pat him on the shoulder.

      “Merritt, I’m so sorry, like, _really_ sorry that your family were like that - you never really talked about that,” Lula whispered, watching the mentalist’s face crumple a tiny bit.

      “Danny, I’m so sorry about your parents, about your grandfather,” Li’s voice broke on the last word as his eyebrows knitted together in an effort to keep his vision clear of tears.

      “Jack, you never even mentioned your parents, you just said you grew up on the streets, I mean - sorry doesn’t even begin to describe how bad I feel right now.” Merritt’s hat slipped to the left, allowing the glow from the kitchen lights to show the streaks on his face. 

      “Lula, your dad - your mom - I can’t even to begin to imagine how you must’ve felt. I mean, we all lost our parents, but, your mom, you and her were so close and she didn’t even let you be there when she -“ Danny’s shell cracked as he dropped his head into his hands, his hunched posture making his whole body look defeated.

      “None of us really had it easy growing up, did they?” Merritt asked, the rhetorical question filling the empty space that had been occupied by sobs of grief moments before. “Are you guys, I don’t even know how to say it but, are you guys, I don’t know, ok?”

      “I’m ok,” Li said, looking at the Horsemen from his seat. “Are you guys ok?”

      “Right as rain, and just as stone cold sexy,” Merritt replied, flipping his non-existent hair in an effort to get a smile on someone’s face. “Lula, you good?”

      “Fine,” Lula said, wiping the tears off of her face quickly. “Jack, are you ok?”

      “Just trying to figure out how Merritt finds rain to be sexy,” he joked, the mask evaporating off of his features, their hands now locked together loosely. “Danny, are you ok?”

      “I’m fine,” he said, not looking at anyone’s eyes. “Sorry to ruin Sunday Night Dinner.”

      “Sunday Night _Family_ Dinner,” Merritt corrected hastily, grabbing the napkin that had slid off of Danny’s lap to the floor and handing it to him. “Atlas, you’re usually such a stickler for the correct titles, I’m surprised.” The light-hearted tone he’d used somehow dropped the tension from everyone’s shoulders, even getting Danny to crack a smile. 

      “You didn’t ruin it,” Li said, already getting up to microwave and reheat the food that had grown cold on everyone’s plates. “None of you did. You only did exactly what Sunday Night Family Dinner was meant to do - bring you all together.”

      “Ah, yes - bring us together. As if we haven’t all been living in the same house like a sitcom family for the past eight months.” 

___

 

      “Whoa, what the hell?” Danny said as Lula gave him a hug that night. “Not that this isn’t nice or whatever, but can I ask why?”

      “You say that you’re fine but you’re not.” The words spilled from Lula’s lips in a stream that only sped up, a cascade of emotions that slammed into each other at breakneck speed. She took a step back, leaving her palms resting on Danny’s shoulders like she was stationing him in place. “None of us are. Jack cries sometimes when he thinks no one can hear, Merritt hasn’t ever really recovered from how his mom and dad and brother didn’t treat him like an actual human being, Li still hides in the shadows like he hid from his dad, don’t get me _started_ on Dylan, and you’re _not_ fine. _None of us_ are fine.” Lula wrapped her arms around him again, ignoring the protests from Danny. “That’s ok though. You don’t have to be fine. But it’s gonna be ok, you know that right? You know that - that you can always talk because one of us is always, _always_ gonna listen. I get that you didn’t have any people in your life for a long time and I get that that left scars, but we’re always gonna be here Danny. And maybe right now you’re not fine, but you’re gonna get there.”

      “Thanks,” he whispered into her hair after a few silent seconds, hugging her back. “I really needed to hear that.”

      “I’m always here for you, you know that, right?”

      “Yeah,” he said, tears hitting Lula’s shoulders. “I know.”

 

 

      They weren’t fine. After what happened to all of them, after what was _still_ happening, they weren’t fine, they weren’t _ok_.

      But they would get there.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, and thank you so much for reading!!! I hope you enjoyed Sunday Night Family Dinner, it was really interesting to write. If you have any comments, suggestions, or reviews, please leave them down in the comments section below!! Thank you so much for reading!!!!
> 
> -Night


End file.
